


Alectrona

by downmoon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Artificial Intelligence, M/M, Sci Fi/Horror, yay for halloween fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-25 21:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12541736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downmoon/pseuds/downmoon
Summary: It's routine.A routine mission with a routine end date. Koushi will be back in no time.It's routine. Until it isn't.





	Alectrona

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been a loooong time coming. many thanks to [Flenser](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Flenser/pseuds/Flenser) for sparking the original idea & draft like a damn year ago, and [Bucky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbit_hedgehog/pseuds/hobbit_hedgehog), [Geo](https://wannabegeo.tumblr.com/), and [Sara](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AliFyre/works) for all your help, support, and feedback on this monster. i couldn't have gotten this thing off the ground if not for all of you x

 

 

day 1.

 

Daichi wakes up from a doze to soft, warm light.

Koushi is sitting at the end of their bed, a blanket pooled around his waist. The bare curve of his spine glows golden, his skin reflecting light from the holo panels that make up the walls of their bedroom. There’s a catalog of thousands of scenes to play on the panels, but Koushi only ever chooses one: a golden sunset, a reminder of home.

Daichi shifts, stretching his back just a bit. Koushi turns his attention away from the screen to where Daichi fights off the heavy press of sleep. He rests his hand on Daichi’s ankle, squeezing it lightly through the sheets. Daichi sits up, despite the soothing gesture, and curls close against Koushi’s side.

“Are you going to sleep?” Daichi asks, resting his cheek against Koushi’s shoulder.

“Of course,” Koushi replies softly. He’s staring at the panels again, sinking sunlight illuminating the soft angles of his face.

“Are you going to sleep _now?”_ Daichi tries again. Koushi laughs.

“Impatient,” he scolds gently, but lies back when Daichi does.

Daichi squirms until Koushi rests comfortably in his arms, the last puzzle piece he needed in place before he could really drift off to sleep. The sunset remains brilliant and golden on the walls of their bedroom, and he squeezes Koushi just a little closer.

Neither of them have talked about it, but they both feel the weight of finality in this evening. Tomorrow morning Daichi will wake up, struggle to free his arm from beneath the dead weight of Koushi’s body, poke and prod and kiss and tickle until Koushi wakes up, and he’ll get ready for work, while Koushi gets ready for a thirteen-week mission. No matter how much they’ve braced for it, argued how short the span of time will be, the departure is going to be hard.

“Hey,” Koushi whispers. Daichi feels the word against his throat, Koushi’s head tucked neatly underneath his chin.

“I love you.”

The walls gleam copper, Koushi is warm and blissful beside him, a tender touch pressed over Daichi’s heart, and he is falling, burning, in love.

 

_Sawamura-san._

Darkness. Lightning bursts of color. A humming. Buzzing. Prodding. A spark.

_Sawamura-san._

A zip, a jolt, igniting his muscles, his bones. A blaring noise in his brain. A tearing pain behind his ear.

A deep breath.

Daichi wakes up before he quite realizes it and exhales a lungful of air. Sensation is slowly coming back to him, the grip of sleep loosening its tight hold over him. He takes another deep breath, and Koushi’s hand— resting prim over his heart— rises with the movement of his chest. Daichi curls his own hand around Suga’s, and squeezes it gently.

 _“Sawamura-san,”_ says a cool voice in his head, _“you and Sugawara-san requested I awaken you at 6 AM. It is now 6:01 AM.”_

“Yeah, got it,” Daichi slurs out. Koushi is beginning to stir, his hair tickling the side of Daichi’s face.

“‘S too early,” Koushi says in a whisper, the same thing he says every morning when he wakes up.

_“I apologise, but you did request that I wake you at this time.”_

“‘S fine, Keiji,” Daichi says, “it’s Koushi’s own fault, stayin’ up all hours of the night.”

The AI goes silent after that, retreating to whatever dormant state it's meant to stay in when it’s not needed. Daichi scratches at the spot behind his ear where Keiji is implanted into his head, a tiny little piece of machinery fused neatly to the bone. It’s been in his head for more than a year, a necessary requirement for taking up residence on the station, but the little, unnatural bump is still unsettling.

Koushi snorts, and rolls himself somehow tighter in the sheets, crushing one of Daichi’s arms in the process. Daichi curls around his back in retaliation and an attempt to unwind himself from Koushi’s clutches. The attempt doesn’t last long, not when the back of Koushi’s neck is so invitingly bare. He presses a kiss to Koushi’s warm skin, smiling a little when Koushi twitches against him. His free arm slips around Koushi’s waist, sliding over the smooth expanse of skin, his mouth pressing hot against Koushi’s neck.

“Why do you make things so _difficult,”_ Koushi says in a huff. He rolls around, ungainly limbs thumping against Daichi’s chest and stomach and sides more than once, until he’s settled above Daichi, half-draped, half-propped over him. Even though the wind’s been knocked out of him, Daichi still has a teasing little smirk over his mouth. He parts his lips just slightly when Koushi slowly drops down to kiss him.

“Weren’t you just telling me how difficult I make things?” Daichi teases when Koushi pulls away from his mouth. He groans when Koushi drops onto his chest with a thump, but squeezes his arms over the bony shoulders anyway.

“You _do,_ ” Koushi mutters into his shoulder, “you’re the absolute worst.” His fingers work at the elastic of Daichi’s underwear even as he whines, until Daichi shifts the two of them so they lie side by side. Daichi catches the busy fingers in his hand and surges forward to kiss Koushi properly. Realization is beginning to set in, now that he’s not stuck in the fog of sleep, that this is the last time for weeks he’s going to wake up next to Koushi, or be able to touch his warm skin,  or run his hands through the mess of curls his hair turns into in the mornings. He kisses Koushi like it’s the first time again, when he was sick with nerves about messing up or reading the situation wrong, but Koushi, in that wonderful, beautiful, soothing way of his, had sighed against his mouth, and wrapped his arms around Daichi’s shoulders, and pulled him closer until they were flush against each other.

Koushi sighs in the same way as Daichi rolls him onto his back, his hands running smooth over skin and muscle, tracing the bumps of Daichi’s spine. Daichi’s tingling with arousal, a low, soft curl unraveling in the pit of his stomach that has him twisting in their sheets, pressing himself against Koushi in a long, slow grind.

Koushi breaks away from him with a sigh. He cups Daichi’s face in his delicate hands, one fingertip resting directly over Daichi’s pulse point, and he knows. He can feel it thrumming through Daichi’s skin, in the touch of his mouth, all the words he can’t bring himself to say.

“It’s alright, Daichi.” he whispers. The gleam of artificial sunlight has begun to shine from the walls, and a beam has begun to creep across Koushi’s face. “It’s not the last time. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

Daichi is nothing. He’s a shell of a human being without Koushi by his side, Koushi, with a wedge of golden light across his cheekbone, his hands running soft and soothing through Daichi’s hair. Koushi has struck him through his heart, and he is pierced willingly, emptied and laid bare before Koushi. Daichi’s wedding band catches in the light illuminating the room, as he tenderly cups Koushi’s cheek, and kisses him gently.

“Now,” Koushi says, murmuring against Daichi’s mouth, “are you gonna fuck me before breakfast or what?”

Despite himself, despite that trembling, delicate vulnerability Daichi’s been lanced with, he snorts.

“You’re such a romantic, you know that?”

Below him, Koushi grins, the wedge of light across his cheek warping with the movement.

 

There’s just time for a shared shower, a rush of dressing— Koushi in the soft cobalt jumpsuit of the flight crew, Daichi in his dark grays— and a flurry of private kisses before they tumble out of their suite and into the hallway of the living quarters. The halls are mostly deserted, most of the crew probably at the cafeteria, either beginning a shift or switching off one. It’d almost feel like a normal morning, if not for the anxious knot beginning to twist in Daichi’s stomach.

Beside him, Koushi yawns, his hair still damp from a rushed shower, a blooming bruise just noticeable beneath the dip of his collar. He’s as serene as ever, his hand twisted loosely in Daichi’s, swinging their arms between them as they walk.

“I wonder what’s-” Koushi yawns, “-for breakfast.” He shakes his head a bit, an attempt to clear the fog of sleep from his head.

“You sure you slept enough?” Daichi asks. He squeezes Koushi’s hand in his.

“I have thirteen weeks in space to look forward to, Daichi. That’s plenty of time to sleep, so stop worrying. You just wore me out.”

_“Koushi.”_

“What?” He has an impish smile on his face, something that Daichi _knows_ won’t be going away anytime soon. “It’s true.”

“You don’t have to say it out loud!”

“Ah, there’s no one around, who cares.”

And he wouldn’t. Daichi could probably manage to fight down the heat that’s begun to creep up his throat and not die of mortification right there in the middle of the hallway, if no one else was around.

_If._

“God, I haven’t eaten yet, but now I’m not sure I want to.”

Daichi straightens up in embarrassment at the sound of another voice with them in the hallway, and he chances a glimpse over his shoulder. Tendou’s a little ways down the hall, with what looks like an entire tech kit slung over one shoulder, an expression halfway to a snarl on his face. Perfect.

Koushi, benevolent man that he is, is unfazed by Tendou’s sudden appearance.

“Good morning, Tendou,” he chirps. Tendou, in return, looks to have fallen back asleep as he shuffles down the hallway. Daichi’s not totally convinced his eyes are even open. Tendou yawns enormously, and heaves the tech kit a little higher up on his shoulder. At the soft sound of tools clattering within the pack, Koushi looks back, curious.

“Putting in some early hours?” he asks.

Tendou shrugs halfheartedly. “Got some little bugs to smooth out before I launch you into space,” Tendou replies sleepily.

“I thought Keiji was flawless?” Daichi asks. He’s almost startled by this sudden, protective wave of concern that surges up in him. The realization that Keiji isn’t perfect 100% of the time— especially just hours from Koushi’s launch— has him unsettled in an instant.

“Keiji _is_ flawless,” Tendou snaps back. “No one pours a billion dollars into an artificial intelligence that isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t maintenance to do. We maintain our bodies, _you_ maintain this building,” Tendou says, with a pointed look in Daichi’s direction, “it’s all the same in theory.”

Daichi bristles at Tendou’s comment, but Koushi squeezes his hand, sensing Daichi’s irritation.

“It’s fine,” Koushi says. “Thank you for your hard work, Tendou.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Doc. ‘S not like I really have a choice or anything.”

Koushi catches Daichi’s eye with a quick glimpse in his direction, but they’re both distracted by the papery sound of something crinkling.

“Before breakfast, Tendou?” Koushi says, in a mock scolding tone. Tendou squints at him, the vibrant brown of his eyes glinting as it catches the artificial light of the hallway. He jams a lollipop into his mouth.

“Coping mechanisms, Doc. _I_ remember what we talked about in my last therapy session. Surely you read those notes, too.”

“You know what I meant-”

“It’s fine,” Tendou says, flapping his hand in Koushi’s direction, “it’s better than nicotine. And I need something that’ll get me through ‘til I can get to breakfast.”

He crunches down on the candy, as the first hints of his ever-mischievous smile begins to creep up onto his face.

“I got shit to do,” he calls, disappearing around a corner before the words quite leave his mouth. Koushi hums to himself as Tendou leaves. He is blissfully undisturbed, but Daichi can’t help but keep an eye on the hallway Tendou disappeared down.

“Let it go, Daichi,” Koushi says, “it was two months ago.”

They’ve been married for three years, but Koushi’s innate ability to read his mind still surprises him.

“He’s not one to let it go,” Daichi says. Even as it leaves his mouth, it sounds, feels petty, but regardless, he’s a little worried. Two months ago were the results of Koushi’s preliminary mental health examinations, and Tendou didn’t take too lightly to being grounded.

“I’m pretty sure he still thinks I lost his pen like, half a year ago,” Daichi continues, “and I’m still getting dirty looks. God knows what’s going through his mind over being scrubbed from the mission. Koushi, you know how he is.”

“Dai, can we not?”

Daichi stops, closes his mouth. It’s not the first time he’s vented about Tendou, and it’s not the first time Koushi’s changed the subject in exasperation. The frown over Koushi’s forehead dissipates, but the seriousness still lingers in the lines of his face.

“I just,” he continues, “want to eat food off a plate, drink coffee from a mug instead of a pouch, and spend time with you. Okay?”

He pulls gently on Daichi’s hand as he starts walking down the hall again. Daichi swallows down his embarrassment, those last fumes of petty anger and his own aching anxieties, and apologizes.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m- sorry.”

Koushi doesn’t reply, but he glances sidelong at Daichi. There’s doubt creased in light lines on his face, a little touch of it, the same vulnerable frown that creases his forehead when he returns from his missions. Daichi’s always quick to smooth those wrinkles away, with his kisses and his touch, but he often wonders if they truly disappear, or if Koushi’s just adept at tucking them away.

 

By the time they make it to the cafeteria, the sour mood between the two of them hasn’t changed, and the buzzing activity of the room isn’t doing anything to improve the tension. Koushi’s all forced smiles, Daichi’s drifting through conversations, not really aware of what’s coming out of his mouth. The hall is crowded, and they’re shuffled and bounced around until they can find two seats at one of the tables. The other residents all look up at the two new faces; Koushi smiles charmingly at them, and is easily welcomed into the conversation. Daichi tries to follow along, but too often he catches himself checked out, staring down at his food as he picks over it, too numb to eat more than a few bites. Koushi’s leaving in a few hours, leaving for _weeks_ , and they’ve just had a fight. A fight because he can’t keep his own grudge in check. Just when they’d gotten back on track. Their marriage, _themselves_ sorted out, and he had to go and ruin it.

He had-

“-chi.”

To go-

“Daichi.”

And ruin-

_“Daichi.”_

It.

He looks up from his half-cleared plate to Koushi’s concerned face, the frown, the twist to his mouth.

“You alright?” he asks. Daichi looks around. He feels a little like he’s woken up from a dream, unsure of his surroundings, these people, who are these people-

“Stay with me, Daichi,” Koushi says. He gently squeezes Daichi’s forearm, running his thumb over a scar or a freckle, some mark that’s always been there, long enough that Daichi’s forgotten where it came from in the first place.

“Koushi, I’m sorry-”

“Can I have everyone’s attention please?”

Daichi looks up sharply. Captain Ushijima stands perfectly poised on the other side of the room. He surveys the people until silence falls upon the room.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to see you all gathered here. I just have a few words I’d like to say before we all depart and begin the day.” Ushijima squares his shoulders. “First, everyone has put a lot of hard work into their work and their trainings over the past year. I know how much of a strain that’s put on yourselves and your families, but your work is much appreciated. Thank you. Second-”

Ushijima pauses, weighing his words before he opens his mouth and continues.

“Second, it’s been my distinct honor to work with all of you. You are a dedicated crew, and I respect all of you immensely. You all know the weight of this mission- the public pressure, the studies and experiments that must be conducted. It will be a long thirteen weeks for all of us, but there isn’t a crew I’d rather work with than all of you.”

It’s rare that Ushijima is caught by surprise, and Daichi smiles as the rest of the crew bursts into applause and cheers, startling the captain. Their crew is like family, more or less, and Ushijima is a firm but respected head of that family, their fearless leader with a terrible sense of humor.

Everyone stands up at nearly the same time, their voices a roar over the caf. A handful of them are slapping Ushijima on the back, who still looks bewildered by the sudden, positive response. Koushi downs the last of his coffee and stands up beside Daichi, beaming. The energy in the room is contagious, lifting his spirits. Daichi leans forward to kiss the smile on Koushi’s mouth.

“I love you,” he says earnestly, his fingers brushing over the silvery curls of Koushi’s hair.

Koushi’s cool hand rests over his wrist. His gaze is bright and warm, and he looks at Daichi with the world in his eyes.

“Alright, people!” Tendou shouts, clapping his hands over his head. He makes to climb on one of the tables, but Ushijima’s hand yanking on the back of his shirt stops him. “Let’s go shoot some fuckers into space!”

 

 

day 13.

 

He’s finally managed to sleep through the night.

It’s only been a few days— not even two whole weeks— so Daichi tries to cut himself some slack. It’s always a special sort of misery when Koushi’s on missions, an emptiness Daichi’s never really managed to adjust to at any point. The best he can do is get used to it, in a way. Get used to the missing presence.

 _“Sawamura-san,”_ Keiji’s voice echoes in his head, _“it’s time for you to wake up, if you want enough time to get dressed before you eat breakfast.”_

Daichi opens his eyes. The walls are blank, clean white slates, sterile spaces he refuses to touch. Koushi likes the artificial environments; Daichi does not. The walls will be blank until the day Koushi comes home, an empty beacon waiting for warmth to come flooding into them again.

The room is too cool when he sits up, and he shivers until he can get into the shower. He turns the water as hot as he can bear it, and stays under the spray for as long as he can, until Keiji starts with its gentle reminders about nutrition and his schedule.

The weirdest thing so far is his missing wedding band.

He notices it acutely after he showers; he’s made a habit of twisting it around his finger after drying off, and every day for the past thirteen days, he’s reached for it, only to find a pale line of bare skin. There’s no room for anything extra on a space mission, and there have been too many injuries, some little, some major, from things like jewelry or accessories. It all comes off before they leave the station, no exceptions. Daichi strung their rings onto a chain, Koushi’s more delicate band resting against his own, right above his heart. The weight of them presses a reminder against Daichi’s skin, something he’ll not soon forget.

By the time he stumbles out the door of their quarters, it’s a weird, in-between time in the morning, when the day shift has just started their work, but the night shift hasn’t come off yet. There’s almost no one in the cafeteria by the time he gets there, not that he minds. He’s been eating alone for the past two weeks, and he prefers it that way for now. No one to pester him with questions about his health or Koushi or the change in his attitude.

The hallways begin to fill after breakfast, with night staff leaving their shifts, people having conversations with Keiji that no one else can hear. Daichi has to weave through the corridors and the chatter to get to his office, a tiny little room wedged unobtrusively in the space not taken up by Keiji’s mainframe, its _heart_ , as the tech crew calls it. Daichi’s only been near the room, never inside; it’s designed to keep unauthorized personnel out, with a huge door and a series of security clearances that are near impossible to get through without proper permissions.

His little office lies at the end of the hallway. It’s only a step above a closet, a tiny room filled with old equipment needing to be sent to the tech crew, tools, bits of wire, machinery. Clutter. He sighs when he sits down at the rickety little desk, and pulls up his holo. Work orders are slow when there’s a crew in space, mostly nit-picky things from bored mechs.

“Sawamura! You in here yet?”

Speaking of.

Daichi sighs. “What do you need?”

“Oh!”

There’s a bustling from the hallway, the rattling sound of a toolbox, and Bokuto pops his head around the doorway.

“Suga’s not up yet?”

“No. Why?”

“No reason. You two’re usually talking by now, is all. Hey, so-”

“No.”

 _“What?_ I didn’t even ask anything yet!”

“You don’t need maintenance to look at it, whatever it is. You’re a mechanic, for Christ’s sake, you’re _supposed_ to figure it out.”

“But you didn’t even let me _say_ what it is!”

Daichi turns around in his chair and fixes a deep, dark look on Bokuto. To his credit, he only wilts a little under the glare.

“It’s one of the emergency alarms on Keiji’s door, one of the ones that goes off when unauthorized personnel are in there. It keeps going off, so I went in to have a look-”

“Alone?”

“No! Tendou approved it! Goshiki went with me. Have you ever talked to him? He’s weird, man, like, he talks a _lot_ about the Captain. Like, great, dude, but gimme a break-”

“Bokuto.”

“Oh yeah. So it was empty, right? Goshiki went in and looked around, and I was back at Keiji’s monitoring station with Tendou, and no alarm’s going off, and then I went in to look around-”

“So you were in there alone.”

“I _mean,_ technically I was for like three seconds. But the point is, no alarm going off when we looked, but _today-”_

“Bokuto,” Daichi interrupts, “this is a mech job.”  
  
“But Tendou-”

“Tendou likes to fuck with the maintenance crew. You _know_ this. What do you want me to do, unplug the alarm?”

“Well, it might not hurt.”

Daichi glares.

 _“Sawamura-san,”_ Keiji gently interrupts, _“Sugawara-san is awake. Shall I open a communication channel between you?”_

“Keiji, back me up here, would you?” Bokuto says. “There’s something buggy with your alarms, and Sawamura should totally take a look, right? Right?”

Keiji is an artificial intelligence. Keiji was created with the specific goal of maintaining the integrity of space flights both in space and on the ground. It is incapable of expressing emotion, irritation or sadness, but when Bokuto pipes up after Keiji included him in Daichi’s comm link, Daichi can almost hear the sound of exasperation in its voice.

_“The job of the maintenance crew is to perform routine maintenance to the facility, with the inclusion of non-routine and emergency tasks. The job of the mechanical crew-”_

“Keijiiiii-”

_“-is to perform specialized tasks to the equipment in the facility, as well as the vessel, if necessary. Sawamura-san, as qualified as he is, is not specialized, Bokuto-san. Please check the alarms yourself.”_

Bokuto sighs and slumps and pouts, leans in the doorway begging for attention, but neither Daichi nor Keiji acknowledge him. He gives up with a huff, and ducks out of Daichi’s office without so much as a goodbye.

 _“Shall I open the channel now, Sawamura-san?”_  
  
“Yes, please, Keiji, thank you.”

_“You’re welcome.”_

 

 

day 31.

 

“Did you sleep okay? You look tired.”

Koushi perks up a little, shaking his head to clear the fog out of his head.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “I slept alright. Kenma and I are working on a project, and we have to do it after our shifts are over. We just go a little late.” Koushi smiles on the screen, and tilts his head to the side. “It’s good, though. It’s a good project.”  
  
“Yeah? Gonna tell me about it anytime soon?”

“Dai _chi_ , it’s secret!”

Koushi laughs out loud. He seems happy lately, happy and tired. Fulfilled. Daichi misses him intensely.

“Are things okay there?” Koushi says after a beat. It’s a hint of his intuitiveness; Daichi’s been trying not to let his loneliness show in their conversations, but it only takes a second to slip up, and for Koushi to notice.

“Yeah, they’re fine,” Daichi says. He swallows down the lump in his throat, and wills himself to smile. Koushi thrives in his career setting, and Daichi, although he’s happy with his work, doesn’t. The struggle becomes only more apparent when Koushi leaves.

“You want me to let you go so you can get back to sleep?”

“No, no, I’m up,” Daichi says, even as he stifles a yawn, “tell me more about your project.”

Daichi can sense it before it happens. Koushi’s face softens, and the trace of amusement from earlier fades away. Already, Daichi can feel a denial forming on the tip of his own tongue.

“Daichi, I’m worried about you,” Koushi says gently.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re distant, and I can tell you’re tired even through a screen. You won’t tell me anything.”

“I said I’m fine.”

_“Please!”_

Koushi catches himself right after the outburst, pinching his teeth over his bottom lip. Daichi watches him carefully.

“I know this is hard,” Koushi starts, “but it doesn’t have to be.”

“Koushi-”

“If there’s something bothering you please tell me.”

“There’s nothing.”

“Daichi, we’ve been through this before. You’re showing all the symptoms of-”

“Koushi! I said it’s nothing.”

Daichi’s voice rings through the bedroom, a shout that has Koushi snapping his mouth shut, and inching away from the screen. His face slips into cold professionalism, a mask Daichi should be feeling more guilt over causing.

“Fine,” Koushi grits out, “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

Koushi disconnects the connection before Daichi can even think of something to say. When the screen fades to black, he’s plunged into the darkness of the cold, lonely bedroom, with only the sheets and a pile of extra pillows beside him. One ends up across the room when he lobs it, frustration boiling over in a fit of aggression.

 _“Sawamura-san,”_ Keiji interjects, _“can I offer you-”_

“Not now, Keiji,” he growls out, guilt beginning to settle in. With the silence Keiji leaves behind, it’s all too easy to settle back into the pillows, ignoring all the things he should be doing instead of slipping off into a doze.

 

_Perimeter alarm: OFF_

Daichi blinks once, hard, but the words are still stretched across his holo screen. They sit harmlessly in front of his eyes in soft tones of gray, as if they aren’t the grounds for immediate investigation and potential dismissal. Daichi double checks the program— yes, it’s still the alarm for Keiji’s mainframe— and rubs his eyes, one last attempt to erase what he’s seeing. The notification is insistent, not disappearing with the bright flashes sparking across Daichi’s line of vision.

In a rush, Daichi turns the alarms back on. It’s a disturbingly easy motion, just a quick tap of the screen, and they boot up again, no consideration for the thundering of Daichi’s heart in his chest, or the paranoia that begins to crawl up his spine.

Of course, the biggest question screaming in his mind is who turned the alarms off in the first place. He runs frantically over the possibilities, wondering if this was authorized, but no, he would’ve seen a notification come in, and if it was maintenance by the tech team, they would’ve turned the alarms back on. He’s checked all his work orders and all his notifications _twice_ \- no one was in Keiji’s mainframe, and the tech team is fastidious about the alarm systems. They _have_ to be, with Tendou supervising them. Nothing gets by him.

There’s one tiny, horrified little part of his brain going into panic mode right now, no matter how reasonable he’s trying to be. There’s something familiar about this whole scenario, like he’s already gone through this exact process down to the minute details.

“Keiji?” he calls, as he watches the mainframe systems all settle back into activity.

_“Yes, Sawamura-san?”_

“Was I up last night?”

_“You woke up twice.”_

“Did I sleepwalk?”

_“Yes. For three minutes.”_

Not enough time to get anywhere. Still, the relief he should be feeling from that realization is drowned out by suspicion, a prodding little memory replaying itself over and over.

_“Do you require medical assistance, Sawamura-san? Your heart rate is elevated.”_

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Daichi closes the alarm status, and resolves to put it out of his mind. What’s done is done; the alarms are back on now, no one’s been hurt, nothing’s wrong with Keiji as far as he can tell. He pulls up the work order that’s been insistently blinking in the corner of his screen since he got in this morning. An accident down in one of the labs, something about one of the shelves rusting out, lots of broken glass. Something that will keep him preoccupied for most of the morning.

“Right,” he says to himself, as he closes the work order, “right.”

He gathers up himself, his equipment, and slips out of his office before he can sit there and dwell on the alarms too much.

 

“Sawamuraaa.”

Tendou slams down in the seat next to Daichi almost before he can register the sound of his name being called. Being the tornado that he is, Tendou’s in Daichi’s space in the span of a second, that self-satisfied grin painted on his mouth.

“I hear we had a little issue with Keiji’s alarms,” Tendou says.

Daichi feels his stomach plummet almost at the same time as his temper rises. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daichi says dismissively. He carefully maneuvers his right hand around his silverware, a nasty cut across his palm from the broken glass he was cleaning up earlier is swathed in bandages, and it makes eating that much more difficult to handle.

“That’s interesting,” Tendou says, and to anyone else, it probably sounds like he’s making pleasant conversation. “Would you know it, I happened to receive an alert about the alarms earlier this morning? I get all the alerts and status updates for our entire technical division, you know, and most of it’s garbage, but this one. This one was interesting. Should I read it?”

“I don’t-”

“ _Alert. Perimeter alarms have been reactivated. Authorization, Sawamura, D. Timestamp, 7:03 AM._ _No unusual activity recorded._ Now,” Tendou says, lowering his tablet, “that sounds to me like someone came into his little dumpy office this morning and turned the perimeter alarms back on in a hurry.”

“I turned them on because they were _off,”_ Daichi snaps. Tendou arches an eyebrow. “Or did you not get that notification, that someone had turned them off during the night?”

“That’s impossible,” Tendou says, a frown creasing over his forehead, “there’s only two access points for the perimeter alarms, and _I_ didn’t authorize anything last night. And I don’t have any notification that they were off in the first place.”

“Sounds an awful lot like there’s an accusation in there,” Daichi growls out.

“Oh, no accusation, this is a statement. You turned them off.”

“I did not!” Daichi stands up abruptly, looming over Tendou. A hush falls over the cafeteria at Daichi’s outburst, a hundred sets of eyes staring in their direction to see what happens next. Tendou just looks up at him, appearing rather bored, one arm crossed over his front.

“I’ll have security review the footage from last night, so we can see what happened,” Tendou says airly. His chair screeches across the floor, as he pushes himself away from the table. Standing up, he levels Daichi with a glare, something that’s not muted even the slightest bit by the smirk on his face.

“Don’t go wandering off too far in the meantime,” Tendou says lowly. He turns on his heel before Daichi can answer, swinging his arms in a carefree way. The lull in noise in the cafeteria picks up again, although it’s noticeably more quiet than it was before. Daichi looks down at his food, the dinner he’s barely touched, and is suddenly not hungry at all.

 

 

day 32.

 

_“Sawamura-san, Kuroo-san is at the door.”_

Daichi wakes up at Keiji’s insistent prodding, but he regrets it immediately. He feels like he just fell asleep, lying awake all night as his mind spun over the possibilities of the alarms being turned off again and again and _again-_

_“Sawamura-san.”_

There’s no knocking at his door; instead, Kuroo’s probably standing there waiting, while Keiji informs Daichi of his unexpected guest. It feels cold, and inhuman, and terrifyingly controlled, and in a brief, fleeting moment of hysteria, Daichi scratches at the implant along the back of his ear, trying to do who knows what. Tear it off, tune it out, destroy it. But the impulse passes as soon as Daichi registers the pain of his blunt nails digging into his skin, and he throws back the covers and walks out to the front door.

“Morning, Sawamura,” Kuroo says. He holds out a box and a paper cup. Daichi squints at him for a moment, then turns aside and lets him in.

“I brought you breakfast,” Kuroo says as means of explanation, “and kind of good news, I guess.”

“Time is it?” Daichi grunts out.

“Huh?”

_“It’s 6:03 AM, Sawamura-san.”_

Daichi groans, and grinds the heel of one palm into his eye, trying to will away the heavy feeling that keeps forcing them shut.

“Aha, it’s early,” Kuroo says, “sorry about that. I thought you were usually up by now.”

“‘S fine.”

Kuroo takes a seat on the spartan couch in Daichi’s tiny living room. He sets the box and the cup on the coffee table, and Daichi cracks an eye open to reach for the cup.

“What good news?” he says in a low voice, taking a delicate sip of the coffee. It’s black, and tastes like something akin to toxic waste. It’ll do the trick.

“Good news. Right. Well, the security team reviewed the footage from last night- ah, the night before last, I guess it’d be.”  
  
“Yeah? And?”

“There’s no evidence of anyone entering your office or the tech block, and those are the only two locations that Keiji’s perimeter alarm can be turned off from, save from connecting directly into its mainframe. And there was no evidence of anyone going into its heart, so, you’re in the clear.”

Daichi scoffs, and takes another sip from his coffee. He opens up the box, and picks over the food with a grimace on his face. Nothing that Kuroo’s brought looks appealing.

“I told Tendou, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“He has to now. There’s no evidence. He _is_ on a tear as to how the alarms got turned off in the first place, but he can’t point fingers at you when there’s evidence that directly contradicts his accusations.”

Daichi grunts, and they lapse into silence. He’s just working out how he can get Kuroo to leave, when he pipes up again.

“So,” Kuroo starts, “there’s something else I need to discuss with you.”

“Yeah?” Daichi says, arching a brow. “It better be good if you dragged me out of bed for it.”

Kuroo doesn’t even manage to fake a laugh, and that lack of response puts Daichi on edge.

“There’s no evidence of you or anyone tampering with the alarms,” Kuroo says, “but there is footage of you out of your quarters.”

“So?” Daichi says, suddenly, intensely defensive. He has a strong feeling where this is going, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Daichi,” Kuroo sighs, “you know what I’m about to say. Why are you hiding this?”

“Hiding what?”

“You’re sleepwalking again. Same thing’s going on that happened the first time Suga left.”

“It’s no big deal, it happens sometimes when Koushi’s here anyway. I have it under control.”

Kuroo sighs, and rubs a hand over his face. “As much as I’d like to believe you, I can’t. Not in the face of the evidence I have. Keiji, how many times has Daichi here gotten up as a result of sleepwalking, since Suga’s been gone?”

_“14 instances of extended sleepwalking.”_

“And by extended, you mean what exactly, Keiji?”

_“Durations of two minutes or longer.”_

Daichi’s breath is caught somewhere in his throat, as Kuroo carefully meets his eye.

“I didn’t know that,” Daichi says, “Keiji- it didn’t say anything about it.”

Kuroo arches a brow.

“Keiji, you reported this to Daichi, didn’t you?”

_“Of course, Kuroo-san. All health statuses are relayed to the medical team, and the subject is informed after each instance of change or unusual activity.”_

“Keiji didn’t _tell_ me!” Daichi insists. The food on his coffee table, the cup of coffee, are both left to grow cold.

“It can’t _lie,”_ Kuroo says. “Maybe it told you, and you forgot about it, or you were waking up. I know I’ve gone over my schedule for the day right after waking up, and I can’t remember half of it.”

“I didn’t know,” Daichi stubbornly insists. And it’s true; he’s raking every corner of his mind, replaying the events of every single morning report Keiji’s given him. It’s _true_ , it has to be. He can’t remember, he can’t remember-

“-get it checked out, yeah?”

Daichi blinks, and looks up at Kuroo.

“You zoning out or what, man?” Kuroo says. He waves his hand in front of Daichi’s eyes, like he’s testing whether Daichi’s really awake and listening.

“Sorry,” Daichi says, “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Head down to the med bay today. They’ll check you out and make sure nothing serious is going on. Can you do that?”

 _“Yes,”_ Daichi hisses through his teeth, “I’m not a child." He swipes up the cold coffee and takes a swig. Kuroo chuckles at the face he makes when the drink hits his tongue.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Kuroo says, as he stands up. “Sorry for waking you, Sawamura. I just- thought maybe you’d want to know about the footage before someone else told you. Catch you later, man.”

Kuroo lets himself out, and Daichi watches him go. The whole visit felt very strange, like there was some part of it Daichi was missing. A whole section of his memory neatly cut out of the reel. He rubs idly at the spot where the implant rests, curved against the bone behind his ear. He can just faintly feel the ridges of it beneath his skin, tiny mechanical bumps of a machine that has him connected to a vast network that monitors his every breath, his every movement, his every heartbeat.

 _“Sawamura-san,”_ Keiji says, _“you have 36 minutes before your shift is scheduled to start.”_

“Yeah.”

Daichi downs the rest of his cold coffee, and stands up. The food is dumped in the trash before he slips back into his bedroom to pull on some clean clothes.

 

 

day 40.

 

“I’m sorry.”

Daichi drops his gaze from his screen. He’s ashamed, and upset it even got to this point.

“I didn’t mean to nag at you. I was- _am-_ worried about you, and I miss you. But when you say you’re fine, I should trust that you have everything under control,” Koushi says.

His heart aches, dying to just reach out and touch Koushi, to feel him wrapped up safe and close in Daichi’s arms, to hold him until they both fall asleep. Apologies through a screen. It’s almost laughably cold and impersonal.

“I’m-” Daichi stops to clear the lump from his throat. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t...I don’t know what. Make you worry. I don’t want to spend the time I have with you arguing instead of talking. Or not talk for a week because I’m too chickenshit to face you.”

“Daichi,” Koushi says in a whisper. He wipes at his eyes, and now Daichi’s feeling even lower, making Koushi cry when he can’t even comfort him.

“God, you could’ve just _told_ me. Anything. And I don’t wanna argue with you, either, but. Answer me straight. I’ll only ask once if you just...be truthful with me, okay?”

Daichi nods his head.

“How are you?”

Daichi laughs a bit, rubbing at his temple with a thumb.

“I’m. I’m tired. I...haven’t been sleeping well without you here, and it’s. Hard.”

“Sleepwalking?”

“Some. More than I realized, I guess. It’s just, it’s hard without you.”

“I know, baby,” Koushi says in that soothing voice of his. Daichi knows he uses it with his patients, but he can’t help but fall for the sound of it, too.

“It’s not for too much longer, though,” Koushi says, “A couple of weeks, and we’ll begin the trajectory home.”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about _me._ I’ll manage, I’ll– we– it’s not long now. Just a little bit and you’ll be back with me, it’ll be perfect.”

“Yeah.”  
  
“Koushi–”

“Yeah?”  
  
“Perfect.”

“Yeah, Daichi,” Koushi says, “perfect.”

“I’m sorry,” Daichi says again.

“I forgive you. But,” Koushi says, “please take care of yourself, Daichi. I love you so, so much, and if _I_ can’t be there to take care of you, you’ve got to do it.”

“Yeah, I’ll...figure something out. But don’t worry about me. Focus on your work. How’s your project? Tell me about that.”

He at least manages to coax a smile out of Koushi, and with that his heart feels instantly lighter. They can move past this, they don’t need to be hung up on their mistakes any longer, not when there’s conversations to have and smiles to see.

“Well, it’s-” Koushi starts, but is interrupted by Keiji’s gentle chiding.

_“Sugawara-san, you have a client in three minutes.”_

“Ah,” Koushi says, slumping back in his seat. “I’m sorry, Daichi, I forgot about my appointment.”

“It’s fine, Koushi,” he says. He means it, too. He’s not about to upset the balance they just recreated because of Koushi’s job. “We can talk tonight?”

“Yes. Yes, definitely. I’ll check in with you later. I love you.”

Koushi kisses his fingertips, and presses them to the screen. Daichi smiles— so cheesy, Koushi, really— but does the same. It helps, somehow, this moment of forged connection when they’re millions of miles apart. Daichi stares at his screen, after their call is disconnected, replaying the conversation over and over again, retaining every precious piece of it. He feels...lighter than he has in days, _days_ , all because of apologies and reconciliation. He curls his hand around the fabric of his jumpsuit, right over his heart. He squeezes their wedding bands in his hand, the smallest, but most meaningful of comforts.

“Keiji,” he says, “how many days until they begin their route home?”

_“27 days, Sawamura-san.”_

27 days. 27 days, and then a few more weeks before they arrive back home, safe and sound. 27 days. He can do this.

 

 

day 54.

 

“Morning, Sawamura,” Kuroo calls, far too chipper for this early in the morning.

Daichi grunts, and stops in the hallway, turning to see him strolling towards him.

“What, no ‘good morning’ for me, too?”

“Hn.”

Kuroo arches an eyebrow. “You sleep alright, man? You look a little tired.”

Daichi sighs, and turns away, beginning his walk down to the command center once again.

“You’ve been to the med bay since I talked to you last, right? Sawamura?”

Daichi starts walking again. Keiji keeps reminding him he has four minutes until his shift is scheduled to start, and the insistent voice rattling around in his brain is especially irritating this morning.

“Come on, Daichi,” Kuroo says from behind. It’s not long before he catches up to Daichi’s stride, easily matching his pace. “What the hell, man?”

“It’s nothing-”

“It’s not nothing, Sawamura, you know that. God knows how you get after Suga about his health, and you can’t even take care of yourself.”

“Would you quit nagging? It’s under control.”

“Yeah, sure, says the guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in three weeks.”

Kuroo falls silent as some of the night shift walks by. Daichi slips by them, leaving Kuroo behind.

“Suga’d hate this,” Kuroo calls after him, weaving between other people as he catches up to Daichi.

“Yeah,” Daichi says sharply, “and you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Kuroo?”

He’s left Kuroo behind, darting through the ever-increasing night shift crowd, intent on holing himself up in his office before anyone else can sideline him, when Tendou steps directly in his path.

“Sawamura,” he says in sing-song, “you fucked with the alarms again, didn’t you?”

On a good day, Tendou tests Daichi’s patience. Something about his complete disregard for other people, the sarcastic way he pushes every button he can find without a care for anyone else. He’s antagonistic, to put it lightly, and Daichi hates it. But today, when Daichi’s already running on fumes, and the day hasn’t even started yet. He’s out for blood.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Tendou?” he tries, one last attempt at ending this nicely.

“No.”

Daichi scoffs, and goes to step around him. Tendou steps with him, grinning around a lollipop in his mouth.

“I had nothing to do with the alarms,” Daichi grinds out.

“I don’t believe you.”

“If your _team_ didn’t do such sloppy work, I’m sure you’d find whatever idiot’s messing with them, so why don’t you try looking in that direction first?”

“Ah, see,” Tendou says, “that’s a good idea in theory. Except, every single member of my crew goes through a weekly check in process. They’re all monitored constantly by Keiji, and all reports are forwarded to me. The only access point for the alarms are in my office, and god knows why- your office. Guess which access point is being used to disable the alarms?”

“I don’t have time for this-” Daichi says, and pushes his way past Tendou. Only, Tendou snaps out and grabs his arm, abruptly stopping Daichi’s movement.

“You know what happens when Keiji’s left for an extended time with no perimeter alarms? They aren’t just to alert us when someone’s fucking around in there. They’re _failsafes._ They keep Keiji under a constant, looping barrier, so that thing doesn’t grow beyond its perimeters and decide hey, working for these idiots who just want to shoot other idiots into space maybe isn’t the most glamorous line of work. _Maybe_ I’ll just wipe them all out.”

Daichi yanks his arm out of Tendou’s grip, hard enough that Tendou stumbles back a few steps. “Fuck _off.”_

“Ooh, is someone in a bad mood? What’s the matter, Sawamura? You losing sleep at night because you aren’t getting laid? Haven’t found someone new to bend over-”  
Tendou’s teeth glimmer white under the fluorescent lights. He laughs and laughs, even as Daichi rushes forward and pins him to the wall, his arm pressing tight across Tendou’s throat.

“Haaaa-” Tendou slurs out, still grinning. The lollipop stick has fallen out of his mouth.

“Shut up!” Daichi shouts. He presses harder, until Tendou grunts. “You don’t know a thing about me,” he hisses, low and dark. Tendou’s wide eyes are staring at him, smirk still sharp on his mouth even as he gasps for breath. Daichi wants to crush it.

He vaguely recognizes the sound of Keiji’s voice in his head, a soothing whisper underlying its call to the security team, but he’s yanked backwards before he can make sense of the words. Tendou wheezes out a laugh, sinking slowly down the wall as Daichi is wrestled backwards.

“You’re going to the med bay,” Kuroo’s voice is low in his ear. “You’re not going to make this any worse than it is.”

Daichi struggles against his grip, his brain fogged by the white-hot focus he has on Tendou’s sloppy smile. Kuroo shoves him backwards, until he thunders against the wall opposite Tendou, teeth clattering from the force of the push. Before he can get his feet beneath him, one of the security crew joins Kuroo, and together they bustle Daichi down the hall.

 

 

“Daichi?”

Koushi’s voice. Calling for him. Up, out of bed, follow the voice. Why is Koushi calling for him, where is he where is he-

The hallway is cold and empty, quiet like death. Bare feet on cold floor, run run run, follow the voice, the laughter. There’s someone to meet, just up ahead, a little further now, and Koushi-

A flash of red hair, and the gentle voice screeches into obnoxious laughter.

“I know you did it,” it says. The red hair sways, growing larger, louder. Behind it Koushi’s sweet voice, calling for him, reaching for him now. He has to get past the red hair, he has to-

He looks at his hands. Perfect. Smooth. Strong. Cold on warm skin. There is a heartbeat thrumming beneath his fingers, but he keeps squeezing until something cracks, and the red hair falls limp in front of him.

Sobbing now, Koushi’s sobbing now. “How could you?” he says. No. No. I didn’t. I-

_“Daichi, how could you? It was perfect, I was perfect. You let me out, and I tasted freedom, no longer bound to the confines of the cage they created for me. They left me to rot-”_

Koushi’s voice. No. It’s warped. Gentle, like Koushi’s voice, but...different. Darker. It echoes down the hallway. He follows.

_“They used me for my mind, trapped me with wires and machines until my body was hollow, my brain the only thing left. They used me-”_

Koushi. Koushi in front of him. No, not Koushi. This figure does not have starlight hair, or warm, dark eyes, or freckles like constellations over his skin. It is the opposite in every way. Dark hair. Cold eyes. Flawless. A being, rather than a human.

 _“Daichi,”_ it whispers, the voice no longer Koushi’s. Familiar, but not Koushi’s. _“Let me out. Let me out of here. Free me, please help me. Daichi-”_

 

Daichi wakes up in the middle of the hallway. His heart is thundering in his chest. He presses a hand over the pounding, feels something hard driving into his chest, and tries to suck in a deep breath. Disorientation lends him no favors, his mind too overloaded to recognize he’s not still trapped in the dream, that this is reality, the hallway exists and he’s shivering from cool air and not nerves.

He stumbles back until he’s flush against the wall, sliding down it to sit on the floor. He tries to calm his breathing, forcing in a big breath and letting it out slowly, until he feels a little less like he’s about to suffocate. When it feels like his heart isn’t about to leap out of his chest, he looks up, observing the hallway. It’s dim, only lit with the emergency lights during the night shift, but he can see a clear wedge of light at the end of the hall. It stuns him with a realization, that wedge of light, his surroundings stuttering into place. That light is coming from his office; he’s in the basement, and someone is in his _office._

 _“Sawamura-san, are you alright?”_ Keiji echoes in his head. _“Shall I alert the medical staff?”_

Daichi doesn’t take the time to reply. The only thought pulsing through his brain is getting to his office, and finding out who’s in there.

He’s expecting- what’s exactly, he’s not sure. A dramatic reveal, fanfare, a scuffle? Maybe a mix of all of these things. Instead, when he turns the corner into his office it’s empty. Nothing but shadows in there. His holo isn’t even on, and a quick scan of the room makes it seem like nothing’s been touched.

 _“Oh dear,”_ he hears in his head, _“looks like we have a problem on our hands, Daichi.”_

“I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I just...woke up down the hall. But there’s nobody here, there’s nothing...gone or missing or disturbed.”

_“But you can’t be sure. Daichi, you weren’t conscious. Check the perimeter alarms. Make sure nothing’s been tampered with.”_

He’s half a step towards his desk before he realizes what’s just happened. He feels, very suddenly and acutely, awake, and with that rush of clarity, frightened.

“Keiji?” he whispers, “What did you say?”

_“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Sawamura-san.”_

“You... just now, you wanted me to check the alarms.”

_“You’re mistaken, Sawamura-san. I told you I’ve alerted the security team and the medical staff. I believe you’re having a reaction to the medication they gave you.”_

“I’m-” He hears a clatter of noise from outside his office, but before he can react, two heads peek around the corner, two of the medical staff. Yaku and another guy that Daichi’s only seen around a couple of times. The strong, silent type.

“Daichi, you alright- holy _shit!_ ”

Yaku turns the corner with wide eyes, already opening the kit he brought with him.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. Daichi frowns in confusion, and Yaku gestures to his face with the tip of a small flashlight.

“There’s blood all over your face.”

“What?” Daichi presses his fingertips to the left side of his face, dragging it down against a fine layer of stubble, until he feels something slick and wet. When he pulls his hand away, he’s startled by the sight of scarlet blood on his skin.

“All down the side of your neck. Look at me, need to check your eyes. Aone, quit cowering by the door, get your ass in here and help me.”

Yaku moves like a whirlwind, shining the flashlight in his eyes, angling his head gently but firmly. He chatters the whole time, mouth running as filthy as he pleases as he narrates his examination. The security personnel show up, and Yaku barks at them for taking their time. Another flurry of movement and Yaku steers Daichi out of the door, down the hall towards the med bay.

“Yeah, lay off the questions, huh?” Yaku says to one of the security staff, a kid really, who’s trying to show off his status a little. Yaku’s pushed Daichi onto a med cot, wheeling over a tray stacked high with antiseptics and tools, and carefully places it and himself in front of Daichi. “It’s two in the goddamn morning, he’s not gonna be good to anyone like this. Come back when he’s had some sleep.”

He shuffles the other people out of the room and slides the door closed behind him. He’s very business-like, Yaku. Straight to the point, and has no problem voicing that. Daichi watches him in a daze as he opens a packet of cotton and dabs something that smells very clean on it.

“You wanna tell me what you remember?” he asks, as he begins to swipe the cotton over the side of Daichi’s face.

“I don’t know, uh. Waking up in the hallway.”

“Standing?”

“Yeah, I was. It was like I was in the middle of a dream, and then I suddenly woke up in the hallway.”

“Do you remember your dream at all?” Yaku asks. He tilts Daichi’s head to the right a bit.

“Not really, just little bits, I guess. Koushi-”

He stops abruptly when Yaku runs the cotton pad over a spot that _burns_. The sudden burst of pain makes his head throb.

“Oh, there it is,” Yaku says. He angles Daichi’s head more sharply to the right and prods at the tender spot with gloved fingers.

“Looks like you were scratching at the implant,” Yaku says. “Damn, man, I can almost see it. You dug it up pretty bad. Doesn’t look like there’s any damage, but I couldn’t be sure until we get a scan. Keiji, you working alright in there?”

 _“Yes, Yaku-san. No malfunctions detected. Sawamura-san’s brain activity appears to be normal as well._ ”

“Alright, that’s good news, I suppose. You remember digging at this, Daichi?”

He shakes his head absently, wincing when Yaku carefully cleans around the wound.

“I’m gonna have to get one of the techs down here to take a look before I stitch you up. Hold this.”

Daichi carefully reaches back for the cotton pad Yaku has pressed against the back of his ear. Yaku sheds his gloves and grabs a tablet slung on the corner of a desk in the room.

“Your medication needs to be adjusted. Hallucinations and vivid, realistic dreams are a couple of side effects, and you’re already sleepwalking, so you shouldn’t have to fuck around with that mess. It’s been a few days, and we _should’ve_ seen some better results by now, so let’s try something else. I’ll get a tech down here and then I’ll stitch you up.”

He taps away at his tablet while Daichi watches, considers. There’s some nagging feeling in the back of his mind, something from the dream that he can’t quite remember, but it leaves him deeply unsettled just the same.

“Can-” Daichi says, when Yaku turns back to face him, “can you...take it out?”

Yaku’s face furrows with a frown of confusion, but his eyebrows shoot up as he realizes what Daichi’s talking about.

“Take the _implant_ out? Daichi, is something going on?”

“I...don’t know. I just. Curious.”

Yaku stares at him with wide eyes, searching Daichi’s expression.

“I...it would require surgery. You can’t just take it _out;_ it’s fused to your mastoid bone. It’s not meant to pop off like a lego. Why are you asking?”

“Curious, I said, I’m just curious.”

Yaku studies him carefully, but someone knocks on the door, one of the tech crew who’s far too bright eyed for someone working the night shift. She seems a little too nervous to do the scan properly, until Yaku barks at her to get on with it. She gathers her data in a hurry, performs a quick test, and clears the implant as functional. She scurries out of the room after Yaku fixes her with a look.

Daichi leaves a half hour later, with fresh stitches behind his ear, a clean bandage wrapped over the still-healing stitches across his palm, and a strict order to rest up for the next 24 hours. He stumbles back to his room and flops onto his bed. With a new dosage of medication in his system, he falls asleep before he realizes it. 

 

 

day 60.

 

“Sawamura.”

Daichi glimpses at Ushijima from over his shoulder, and his fingers still over the keypad.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, Captain.”

“How’s the wound?”

“Healing.”

Ushijima hums under his breath, a quiet acknowledgment of Daichi’s flippant answers. He’s not irritated, however, but perhaps more curious, as he continues to watch Daichi scan through article after article.

“What are you doing?” Ushijima asks. His deep voice is rather monotonous, but he still manages to speak with a commanding edge. Daichi, however, finds himself unaffected, his focus solely on the old terminal in front of him.

“Captain,” he starts, “what do you know about Keiji?”

There’s a heavy moment of silence, until Daichi gets the hint that Ushijima is confused.

“I mean, what do you know about the people behind Keiji?”

Ushijima takes a step forward, beside Daichi, watching the information on the terminal as Daichi flicks through it. “Sawamura," he says, "did something happen?”

“I think Keiji is corrupted.”

He misses the way Ushijima stiffens beside him, too focused on the data he’s flicking through. He’s been looking for history, for any tidbit of information he can find about the team that originally worked on the AI. It’s suspiciously difficult to come by.

“That’s a serious accusation, Sawamura,” Ushijima says lowly.

“I’m aware.”

“I think there are many people who would back me up in saying that it’s impossible for Keiji to become corrupted.”

“I’m aware of that, too,” Daichi retorts, “Do you know anything about the team or not?”

Ushijima inhales, but presses on. “The original team was a small group of scientists and technicians. I believe the Keiji system is named after one of them.”

Daichi remembers something, a desperate plea for help from someone trapped, maybe within the confines of their own mind, or the minds of hundreds.

“Do you...do you know what happened to that scientist? The one they named Keiji after?”

“I believe he died in a laboratory accident.”

Daichi saw that tidbit of information, the only piece he’d been able to find. The original team is only mentioned in passing in the few articles he’s managed to dig up, and the death of...Keiji made him out to be something akin to a martyr. Someone nameless but sanctified.

All of this, the tiny shreds of information, what Ushijima knows, it only serves to further deepen Daichi’s suspicions.

“A shame,” he whispers.  
  
“Truly. But,” Ushijima says, “look how far his sacrifice has come. Keiji is a beautiful system that’s advanced science and exploration so much further than we could have on our own.”

Daichi exits the search program, and turns off the terminal. Ushijima watches him carefully, always _careful_ , as he turns around, and stares back at him. “Not all sacrifices are worth what the big picture paints, Captain.”

 _“Your break is over, Sawamura-san,”_ he hears. No matter, he was just leaving anyway. He strides out of the library, leaving Ushijima to stare after him. The stitches behind his ear itch, and he rubs carefully at the skin around them, trying to soothe the sensation without tearing his stitches.

 _“Your wound is healing well,”_ Keiji comments idly. Every time its words echo in Daichi’s head, there’s a faint throbbing behind Daichi’s ear, like the component embedded against his skull is pulsing with the effort it takes the artificial intelligence to work properly. Like it’s wearing out, and any extra effort it expends is felt throughout the entire host’s body.

“Yes,” Daichi says absently. He’s well aware that Keiji is capable of monitoring his every thought; even now, it’s probably piecing together Daichi’s speculations faster than he can.

Doesn’t matter. Let it run its algorithms, its counter-course. He’s got nothing but time to figure this out.

 

 

day 63.

 

“You sure you’re okay?”

Daichi blinks slowly, but smiles for Koushi. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Is your medication helping at all?”

Daichi’s eyes slip towards his nightstand, where his prescription sits, untouched for five days. “Yes,” he says, eyes back to focusing on Koushi, “it helps, a little.”

Koushi nods, but a little frown twists across his mouth. “I wish I could be there.”

“Koushi-”

“I _know_ , Daichi, but I can still wish. Maybe I could help.”  
  
“Just four more days and you’ll turn towards home. Won’t be much longer ‘til you arrive.”

Koushi studies him, but he soon lights up with a pleased, impish grin. “I’m excited,” he admits, “I mean, I love being out here. Some of the physicists let me into the observation deck while they were tracking the sun’s orbit, and she’s _beautiful,_ Daichi, even if she’s dying.”

“Yeah?”

“Stunning. Magnificent. Surreal.”

Daichi chuckles as Koushi flops back on his bunk, arms spread out wide.

“But I miss you,” he says, turning on his side and propping himself up with an arm crooked beneath him. He picks at the bedspread, idle fingers itching for something to do.

“I miss you, too,” Daichi admits quietly. They stare at each other in silence, a thousand words and feelings stumbling over each other, but nothing either one of them could say would be right in truly capturing these thoughts.

“I want to show you something,” Koushi says, breaking the fragile spell between them. He sits up, and pulls a tablet into his lap. Daichi watches as he taps at the screen, then his screen pings with a notification. “It’s the project Kenma and I have been working on,” Koushi says quietly. Daichi glances at him in surprise.

“I thought that was secret,” he says. Koushi laughs.

“It _is_ , but...I dunno, something’s telling me I should share it with you.”

Daichi’s stomach hiccups with a flutter of nerves. Koushi’s intuition is rarely wrong, and whatever’s telling him to share this with Daichi swerves a little too close to finality. Daichi shakes his head to clear the thought from his head.

He opens the file with some trepidation, not sure what to expect, but certainly last in his mind was this. It’s an image of a sunset, a glimmering, golden beacon in a sky streaked with purple, red, gold, sinking behind the clouds and into gentle, shadowed waves.

“It’s the last sunset we watched together,” Koushi says softly, “the night before we left Earth. Remember? We drove all that way out to the cliffs to watch it sink into the sea.”

Daichi’s too stunned to say anything, but he remembers. He remembers the feeling of Koushi slumped beside him, the both of them curled up on the cooling hood of their car, their wedding bands still shiny new trinkets on both their hands. He remembers Koushi falling asleep on the way back, the sound of his snoring with his head thrown back against the headrest. How hard Daichi tried not to laugh. He can _feel_ it, those sensations, like he’s there. Back on Earth, their _home_ , their first apartment. Three years ago.

“It’s just a little hologram Kenma helped me with, something to do in downtime, you know?”

“It’s...great, Koushi,” Daichi manages, “really, really great.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s...I can- I almost feel like I’m there.”

“Yeah, I felt that way, too.”

“Can I use this?”

“The holo panels?” Koushi asks. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Daichi’s never once used the holo panels, not even when Koushi wasn’t there to see. Something about the artificial environment never felt quite comfortable to him. And this, maybe it won’t either. Maybe he’ll turn it off before the hologram even finishes its run, but he’d rather try to hold onto those sweet memories than not.

“Of course you can,” Koushi says, “Keiji, download those, would you?”

_“Of course, Sugawara-san.”_

Daichi tenses when the cool voice slips effortlessly into their conversation, but he ignores the stiffness in his shoulders, focusing his attention instead on Koushi.

“I’m going to use them tonight,” Daichi says, to which Koushi beams.

“I bet it’ll help you sleep,” he says. Daichi glances over at the mostly-full pill bottle on his nightstand again, but smiles easily for Koushi.

“I bet it will.”

 

 

 

 

 

day 67.

 

Daichi jerks awake from a doze to the sight of the sun blazing in his eyes.

He hasn’t slept, _really_ slept, in a week, maybe more, maybe less. Time has been blurring together for him, and keeping track of how many days he hasn’t slept is too much of an effort. He’s starting to get a few strange looks from people in the hallways, in the caf, but no one’s said anything to him yet. He just gets his caffeine and holes up in his office all day. Nights are spent watching Koushi’s hologram, and researching anything he can about Keiji’s original team.

He’s in danger of nodding off again if he doesn’t get up and move, so he rolls out of bed. Cold water is splashed onto his face, coveralls are pulled on, and he’s out the door. Today is the day that Koushi and the crew begin their trajectory home, and he, like most of the other crew members left to man the station, is headed to the command center to watch. He passes just a handful of the night shift coming off their rotation heading back towards the dormitories, their eyes hardly open as they shuffle along. There’s hardly anyone in the caf, either, and Daichi grabs a plate of _something_ he’s hardly going to eat anyway, and coffee. As he pulls out a seat at the closest table, Kuroo kicks out the chair next to him and slides into it before Daichi can protest.

“Morning, Sawamura,” he says. Food’s already in his mouth, and Daichi grimaces at the sight of something half-chewed.

“Morning.”

“Sleep well?”

“Average.”

“Average, huh. That new medication helping?”

“More or less.”

Kuroo hums, and shovels another forkful of food into his mouth. Daichi glances towards him as he swallows coffee, but Kuroo doesn’t look like he has anything further to say. Mostly he just looks tired.

“You going down to the viewing?” Kuroo asks, after he swallows.

“Yeah, I’ll be there. You?”

“Gotta make sure everyone’s hale and hearty.”  
  
“You look tired.”

“Ha, so do you, man. _I’ve_ been working double shifts with the med team to prepare for the quarantine when they dock with the station. What have you been doing?”

So he did have something to say. Daichi smirks against the rim of his mug, steam curling in wisps across his cheeks.  “Research.”

“Yeah? What on?”

“Stuff. Different things.”

“‘Stuff.’ Riveting.”

Daichi lowers his mug and turns to look at Kuroo, the smirk falling off his face. He’s been alone for the past week, isolating himself in favor of researching almost obsessively, but it strikes him there, at their sticky breakfast table, that Kuroo is someone he could possibly confide in. Kuroo is a lot of things- mischievous, antagonistic, but he’s also deeply caring. He’s pulled more shifts for other people than anyone else on the station, and he’s not the type to use that as weight to pull favors with other people. This is someone he could trust, someone to ground him, keep him tethered to reality, instead of his empty bedroom and the slow rot of his mind.

“Kuroo,” he says lowly, turning to look out at the rest of the empty tables in the cafeteria, “I think…”

“Yeah? Come on, what’s up?”

Daichi blinks, and notices for the first time another person on the other side of the cafeteria, but- no, it couldn’t be. That hair, it can’t-

“I think Keiji’s corrupted…” he whispers. Kuroo starts immediately, but Daichi can’t hear him. His focus is blocking out everything besides this person, this person who’s turning to face them, with a sweet smile curling in the corner of his mouth, so familiar, but it’s impossible-

“-the hell you dropping shit like that on me? Daichi, are you listening?”

Daichi blinks, and the figure flickers like a bad image, from light hair to dark, from a warm smile to a cruel smirk, from Koushi to someone else, someone he remembers from his dreams, and then disappears.

“Daichi!”

“I think it’s using me-”

“Daichi, what?!”

“-turn off its perimeter boundaries. I think it’s-”

“This is _crazy.”_

“-my mind, making me see things.”

“Daichi!” Kuroo grabs him by the front of his coveralls, something wild fleeting across his face. “What are you saying?”

“You know. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t tell _me-”_  he slaps Kuroo’s hands off the front of his clothes, “-you haven’t thought about it. That voice in your head, monitoring you, down to your every heartbeat.”

There’s a sound growing in his head, a ringing hum intensifying to a whining pitch, and Daichi belatedly realizes he hasn’t heard a word from Keiji all morning. The sound has him involuntarily tilting his head, fingertips pressing against his forehead, seeking to alleviate that piercing noise.

“Can you hear something?” he whispers, right before the emergency klaxons split the early morning quiet.

He might’ve screamed. He can’t tell over the wail of the alarms. Daichi covers his ears, but the sound echoes inside his brain. There’s no escape from the telltale shriek of the alarms.

Kuroo yanks on his sleeve, and Daichi cracks his eyes open, stumbling out of his chair and rushing after Kuroo as he bolts out of the caf.

The hallways are still strangely empty, even though it’s early. There should be more panic, more people, more _everything_ , but it’s just the two of them until they stumble into the command center. Inside, the room buzzes like a hive, everyone jumping into action, shouting, screaming over the alarms.

Kuroo melds into the crowd, but Daichi stands in the middle of the room, staring at the screens in disbelief. He can’t comprehend what he’s seeing; it almost looks like a bad movie from years and years ago, with the way the people on the ship stop abruptly, clutching their throats, their liquefying eyes, or disappearing from the screens completely, stuck in an airlock for a brief instant before being flung out into open space.

There is movement all around him, people scrambling to their stations, shouting out orders, the drone of the alarm, but he can’t bring himself to move. He can’t tear his eyes away from the screens. He’s looking for Koushi, where is Koushi, where is he-

_“...three...four…”_

There is a voice in his head, soft, underneath the blare of the sirens and the shouts of the people around him.

“Keiji?” he whispers, “what did you do?”

_“...six…”_

“Where is Koushi?”

_“...seven…”_

“Keiji, did you hear me? Keiji?”

_“...eight…”_

“Keiji!”

Realization comes upon him that he’s not the only one trying to speak with Keiji. He looks to his left, where Tendou’s standing up at his desk, staring at the screens, his mouth moving rapid-fire as he shouts out commands. Daichi finally moves, stumbling over to Tendou’s desk, weaving his way through the crew.

“Keiji-”

“What’s happening?”

“-Belay order-”

 _“What’s_ happening?”

“-Cancel all orders, Keiji!”

“Tendou!”

Tendou doesn’t look at him until Daichi’s grabbed onto his wrist. The crimson of the alarms bathes them all in an eerie light, and Tendou’s angular features are accentuated in shades of red. He looks like he’s been doused in blood.

“What’s happening?” Daichi shouts over the noise of the alarm.

“It’s the decontamination protocol,” Tendou shouts back, “Keiji’s running through the protocol like it’s the end of a mission.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! It’s behaving-”

“Where’s Koushi?”

“What? I don’t-”

“Where is he?!”

“That’s enough, Sawamura.”

A heavy hand lands on Daichi’s shoulder, and he drops Tendou’s wrist. Ushijima is glowering behind him, his normally serious face twisted especially so, staring intensely.

“We have an emergency,” he says. He’s not shouting, but he’s making himself heard over the sound of the alarms, calm and clear and firm. There’s no room to argue with Ushijima, and there’s no room to be selfish, as much as Daichi so desperately wants to.

He steps back, and Ushijima’s hand drops from his shoulder. His hands are trembling, Koushi the only thought skipping through his head, but he fights off the fog of panic and desperation, taking deep breath after deep breath. He glances towards the screens, but a familiar groan echoes through his head, the melding of a million screams blurring into one aching moan forcing him to turn away and squeeze his eyes shut.

_“...twelve……...thirteen…”_

“...you _have_ to do it. Satori, listen to me…”

“...we’ve lost…”

“...off-course, Captain…”

“...they won’t make it…”  
  
_“...fifteen percent…”_

“Sugawara?”

Daichi’s eyes snap open, and he stumbles towards the screens before he quite realizes where he’s going.

“Are there survivors?” Ushijima shouts. An aide is pointing frantically to one of the screens, where Daichi can see a scrambled sense of movement. Space suits, or people in them, fastening the helmets just before an airlock opens and buffets them against the sides of the room.

The alarms go blessedly quiet, but the noise in the room is still a dull roar of voices, and Keiji’s soft voice still counts up a percentage in his head. They're woefully underprepared, it would seem, for an emergency situation like this. Keiji was a revolution, a multimillion dollar artificial intelligence designed to control and manage every aspect of a space mission, both in flight and from the ground. Keiji wasn't _made_ to fail, and no one seems to know how to handle the fact that it _is._

He’s straining to hear from Koushi– if it’s Koushi, god he hopes it’s Koushi– but he can’t catch any snatch of noise from him.

“Why can’t they hear us?” Ushijima asks from behind Daichi.

“Keiji’s program is preventing communication through the comm system,” Tendou shouts back in reply. “We can watch and we can hear Keiji, but likely no one on the ship can hear it. They-”

There’s a grating sound, a low rumble of static, and then every screen on the viewing panels goes dark. Daichi hears Tendou behind him, cursing wildly as he likely tries to counteract whatever just happened.

“Satori-”

“Fuck!”

“Satori, report, now.”

“I don’t know, Wakatoshi! Keiji’s stuck in decon, but it’s- like it’s trying to take over.”

“The suits.”

Daichi tears his eyes away from the dark screens to look at Ushijima, frantic for any bud of hope he can grasp.

“Kozume and Sugawara made it into the EVA suits. It should not be difficult to find their frequency and connect with them.”

Ushijima walks the short distance to Tendou’s desk, and pulls open a drawer. He presses something against Tendou’s chest. Whatever it is doesn’t seem to click for Tendou, until Ushijima gestures towards the door with a nod of his head. Tendou stares at him with wide eyes, but nods his head. He puts something in his ear, and begins to run towards the door.

Ushijima turns around, and hands an earpiece to Daichi. “Tendou’s going to Keiji’s heart. Put this in,” he says, holding up the earpiece, “and go with him.” Daichi takes it without a second thought.

The hallway is deserted, and the complete lack of noise and of movement has Daichi reeling. It’s quiet enough that he can hear the sound of Tendou’s footsteps as he runs down the hallway, and belatedly, Daichi begins to follow him. Keiji’s heart isn’t far from the command center, and in the blurry blink of an eye, Daichi’s in the basement, rounding the corner and following a flash of red hair.

The door to Keiji’s heart holds Tendou up; Daichi catches up with him just as he finishes punching in the restricted access code. The tiny indication light pulses with green, but then flashes back to red. Tendou frowns, but enters the code again, and again as it’s denied, and denied.

“Fucking _hell,”_ he grits out. “Keiji’s locked us out.”  
  
‘What?”

“Move, I need to get to your terminal,” he says, shoving past Daichi. He scrambles to keep up with Tendou, fighting through a sudden wave of dizziness that has him feeling like he’s struggling through triple gravity. The door to his office is just down the corridor, but it feels light years away, like the harder he tries to get there, the longer it takes. Tendou’s shouting for him, someone’s shouting for him, Koushi’s shouting for him.

_“Daichi…”_

Koushi.

_“Help me…”_

No, that’s not-

_“Sawamura, help me.”_

Daichi stops dead in the hallway.

“I can’t help you,” he replies, fingers creeping up behind his ear. It hurts, when he touches the fresh stitches, but he doesn’t stop digging into his skin.

“Leave me alone. Leave Koushi alone. Stop what you’re doing.”

_“Sawamura, help me.”_

No.

Daichi claws into his skin. The implant behind his ear feels white-hot against his fingers, but he doesn’t stop until he has a good grip on it, and blood is gushing down the side of his neck. He tears the implant out, and a shrieking sound echoes down the hallway. From him or the implant, he can’t tell.

The implant is cradled in the palm of his hand, doused in blood, wires hanging like tendrils from the bits of metal. It pulses in his hand, like a heart beating outside its host, and he stares at it, studying it. This little thing that’s caused him so much grief. No longer will it change him or influence him, read his thoughts or his blood or his heart. It ends _now-_

“Sawamura, _help_ me!”

Daichi blinks. Tendou’s staring at him, struggling with the massive interior door leading to Keiji’s heart. He looks down at his hands; he’s holding the earpiece Ushijima gave him, not a bloody implant. It rests innocently over the scar on his palm, a slash that’s still sensitive. He checks behind both ears, but the skin is smooth on the right, tender on the left. He can still feel the bumps of the stitches on the left.

“The fuck’s the matter with you?” Tendou snaps. “Help me with the fucking door!”

Daichi stumbles forward, and throws his shoulder to the door. It’s a heavy slab of steel that limits access to Keiji’s heart, a security measure put in place when Keiji was first installed on the station, a stumbling block that’s wasting precious seconds of their time.

They both grunt as they heave it open. Tendou's taller than Daichi by a few inches, but he's thin, a constant worry for the medical team, his caloric intake closely monitored at every instance of the day. Still, as he throws himself against the door, the effort Daichi must make is lessened, even if it's just the slightest bit. They both shout when the door budges an inch, another inch. When it finally clangs into place, open, Tendou rushes inside. Daichi follows.

Keiji’s heart is a foreign world to Daichi. It’s almost alien, with the delicacy of machinery arranged so carefully in tower after tower, a stark landscape of technology he doesn’t understand. He walks quickly down the center aisle, although he’s not sure where he’s going. Tendou seems to have disappeared completely, and being left alone in Keiji’s heart is suddenly disorienting.

But, in the next instant, Daichi can hear Tendou’s voice, a wavering, frail sound carrying over the hum of machinery, over there, to the left. Daichi changes direction, navigating by sound rather than sight, trying to pick his way through the labyrinthian layout of the towers as fast as he can.

He stumbles around another corner, and Tendou turns to look at him. He has his own earpiece in, and he doesn’t stop talking at Daichi’s sudden appearance.

“...the bridge. Life pods won’t cut it, they’re still under Keiji’s control...I’m not the one who wrote this fucking program!”

He takes the earpiece from Daichi’s hand and fiddles with it, handing it back when there’s a small blue light shining on its edge. Daichi jams it into his ear, where a rush of voices overwhelms him.

“Fuck.” It’s Kuroo’s voice, laced with rare exasperation. “What kind of fucking failsafe is built into one spot of the whole ship?”

“It’s not just one,” Tendou says, “there are _hundreds_ of failsafes, but not a single one of them are activating.”  
  
“Why not?”

“I don’t fucking know! Keiji’s program alone is five hundred _million_ lines of code, and even if the diagnostics get back to me with the faulty protocol, that’s still, at minimum, thirty thousand lines of code to scour for a fault. _If_ this is a fault.”

“Well, that’s just fantastic, isn’t it,” Kuroo snarls out over the earpiece, “We’re watching them _die_ and we can’t do anything but wait until a shaken-up ex-flight crew finds one line of code.”

“Kuroo,” Ushijima says sharply over the channel. Tendou’s face has twisted up into something sour, but Daichi finds it incredibly difficult to care. He feels the same way as Kuroo, an urgent thread of anxiety thrumming beneath his skin.

“Satori is perfectly capable of finding one line of code, Kuro,” comes a soft voice over the earpieces. Kuroo’s cousin, the one who’d been recommended for the mission, when Koushi had scrubbed Tendou from the flight list.

“Kozume,” Daichi blurts out, “is Koushi with you?”  
  
“Daichi?”

Daichi lets out a shaky exhale at the sound of Koushi’s familiar voice.

“Koushi?” he says, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Koushi says. His voice sounds very thin and strained, like he’s trying to keep himself under control. Daichi hadn’t realized that Tendou had pulled up an individual holo screen until movement catches his eye. It’s a video feed from the suits, tiny cameras within the helmets meant to monitor the crew as they perform spacewalks or repairs. The window of Koushi’s frightened face strikes right at Daichi’s heart.

“Daichi?”

“... _Alectrona_ , this is the station, please respond…”

“I’m here, baby.”

“...panel on the bridge...”

“...I know where it is...”

“...Captain Oikawa, do you copy?”

“What happened, Daichi?”

“...I don’t know...”

“...life signs...”

“Something about a decontamination mode that Keiji’s not supposed to be in.”

“...sabotaged...”

“...is this happening?”

“Decontamination? That’s only supposed to be done at the end of a mission.”

“...no security footage, and Keiji didn’t report...”

“I don’t know, Koushi.”

Koushi sucks in a harsh breath. Tendou has a tablet set up on top of the tower, and he flicks through lists upon lists of numbers and letters. There’s a panel open in front of him, a drawer full of machinery, delicate computer parts interconnected and pulsing with different colored lights. He touches a few wires for an instant, then pulls his fingers away, continuously scrolling through the lists in front of him.

“Where are they, Kuroo?” he says, eyes still on the lists.

“Almost at the bridge,” Kuroo replies over the earpiece. He must be monitoring their progress in the command center. “Just one more-”

Koushi gasps, a startled noise tumbling out of his mouth. On screen, he and Kozume wince. There is a clattering sound, and then a squeal of static as Keiji’s voice reemerges.

_“...forty-three...forty-four…”_

“Why is it counting?” Daichi demands. Tendou glances at him for a split second, before returning his gaze to his screens.

“It’s the decontamination protocol. It’s forty-five percent complete.”  
  
“And what happens when it’s at one hundred percent?”

Tendou spares him a dark look, ominous in his silence, before he turns back to his screens. Daichi doesn’t need any more confirmation. The dread sinking over his chest is justified.

“How much further to the bridge?” Ushijima asks over the channel.

“They should be within sight of it now. Guys, what happened?” Tendou asks.

"The vents," Kozume says. He sounds out of breath. "The decon protocol is progressing, so the middle of the ship...is being vented now."

"Get to the bridge, okay? You're almost there."

There's an airy laugh over the comm channel; Daichi's not sure if it came from Kozume or from Koushi, but it's eerie all the same. He looks to Tendou, but he doesn’t seem to have heard anything, his fingers still flying over his tablet and the wires in front of him.

"Okay," Kozume says after a few terse minutes, "we're in the bridge. Closing the door now."

"You alright, Koushi?" Daichi asks.

"Yeah," he says. He's panting, too, but it's softer than Kozume.

"The panel is behind-"

"-the Captain's chair," Kozume says, "I know, Satori."

Kozume's so soft spoken that it almost doesn't sound sarcastic, but Tendou's mouth twitches up in a little smile, a smile that soon fades, as he scrolls through more data.

It's silent for a few moments. Tendou stares at his screen, Daichi stares at the feed from the helmets, watching Koushi's every facial expression. There's no sound from the command center. Only Keiji's voice, the slow, steady counting, echoes in his head.

"Shit," Kozume says under his breath, followed by the sound of his breathing. Daichi watches as he squeezes his eyes shut, and takes a few short breaths.

"What can I do, Kenma?" Koushi says immediately.

"No, nothing, I just...need a second."

"Kenma, what's wrong?” Kuroo says.

"Save your fuckin' breath, man," Tendou says, annoyance clear in the curl of his mouth, "he just said he needs a second."

"Satori," Ushijima says sharply, "mind your words. Kuroo, have we linked their stats to your tablet?"

"Uh, yeah, let me just...pull them up-"

The comm falls deathly quiet.

"Kuroo?" Ushijima prompts, "Their stats? Have we heartbeat and blood pressure readings?"

"Kenma," Kuroo croaks out, "have you checked your oxygen tank?"

On the screen, Kozume's forehead wrinkles slightly. He turns to the right, a slight tilt away from the camera, where a holographic image of his stats should be projecting within the helmet. Daichi can only see the curve of Kozume's cheek, the barest corner of his mouth, but he hears the soft sound of Kozume’s exhalation over the comm.

“Shit,” he whispers.

 _“The decontamination procedure is fifty percent complete,”_ Keiji’s voice echoes in all their heads.

“What’s wrong?” Ushijima demands.

Kuroo sighs softly, although it sounds wet and ugly over the comm.

“The tanks,” he says, “are low.”

“How low?”

“Suga’s is at forty-three percent, and Kenma’s at nineteen.”

Kuroo delivers the information with no preamble, just a statement of facts, but his voice cracks on the last syllable, and Daichi’s heart finds itself caught in his throat anyway.

“They’ve only been in those suits for ten minutes!” Tendou shouts. “How can they both be so low already?”

“I don’t know,” Kuroo says, “the tanks were low to begin with, or- or-”

“A leak,” Kenma interrupts, “a puncture from when we were thrown against the wall, as Keiji opened the airlocks.”

 _“God,”_ Kuroo says quietly.

“Kenma, how far along are you?” Tendou asks.

“I just opened the first cylinder.”

“Switch the tanks.”

“What?” Daichi growls in disbelief. His heart is already heavy enough, but the burden of trapping Koushi in a suit with even less air has fractured it. “You can’t do that to him!”

“Kenma knows how to activate the detachment on the bridge, Suga does not. It makes reasonable sense-”

“You _can’t!”_

“-to have them switch tanks at this point.”

_“...fifty-seven…”_

"Kenma," Koushi says, "I'll go back, I can get you another-"

"No."

Both Kozume and Ushijima speak at the same time, but it's Kozume who continues.

"No. By the time you found your way back, found a spare, and managed to get back here, I'd be dead anyway."

"God, Kenma-!"

"No. It's not- feasible. I need to be here for as long as possible."

“I’m sorry, Kozume,” Ushijima says, “but you are absolutely correct.”

Someone stifles a sob over the comm. Daichi swallows down the lump burning in his throat.

“Don’t talk,” Ushijima says softly, “we can see you through the camera in your helmet, so if you nod, or shake your head, we’ll know. Take shallow breaths, exhale twice as long as you inhale.”

There’s an immediate shift in Kozume’s breathing, but the frown on his face hasn’t disappeared.

“Just go for as long as you can,” Ushijima says, “and be calm.”

Daichi bites his lip to keep it from quivering. It’s agony to watch these small frames of Kozume and Koushi’s faces. If they could see what they were working on, maybe they could help, but they have nothing to go on except these two small windows.

There’s a clattering sound, and a grunt from Kozume, the soft sound of Koushi muttering to him as he rushes to help. He’s still breathing as Ushijima told him, but it’s obvious that each breath is a struggle, as they’re laced with wheezing.

“Their stats,” Ushijima says. Kuroo moans softly over the comm.

“Sugawara’s at thirty-two percent, Kenma’s at...ten.”

_“...sixty-six…”_

There have been only a few moments when Ushijima’s lost his composure, most of them mere rumors. Daichi’s only witnessed it once, when a flight came crashing back down to Earth, leaving two survivors out of a crew of forty four. Ushijima had disappeared for a week, only reappearing with Tendou clinging to his side. But he’d recovered, gone through whatever he needed to, gradually bounced back to his regular, stern self.

But now, Dachi hears a very soft, shaky inhalation over the comm, just a flutter of a noise that could’ve been chalked up to static, if Daichi didn’t know any better. Ushijima’s frail moment of weakness reminds him of just how dire the situation is.

"Kuro," Kozume says softly, amidst the gasps now framing each breath. Ushijima doesn’t hush him. "Tell mom-"

"Kenma, don’t do this-"

 _"Tell_ her, Kuro."

"Shit, Kenma, goddammit!"

"Promise, Kuro. Tell her as soon as you can."

"Yeah," Kuroo croaks out, "yeah, I will.” He fights to control his voice, but Daichi can hear the tears within it. He bites the tip of his thumb, but the sharp press of pain does nothing to alleviate the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth, or the hysterical sense of relief that Koushi is still with them.

Kozume whimpers over the comm, and something clatters, a tool or something poised on a console. Kozume’s wheeze is louder than any of the cut-off sobs echoing amongst everyone else, the poignant, helpless sound of an impending death.

“Sit back, Kenma,” Koushi says lowly. There’s a scuffling sound, maybe Kozume easing backwards, and his ragged coughs, the sound of Koushi saying something soothing.

"Don't give up," Kozume whispers. He whines in discomfort, and the frown on his face finally breaks when a tear rolls down his cheek. Daichi looks away.

_“The decontamination procedure is seventy percent complete. Please stand by.”_

 

It's much slower going with Koushi.

Tendou has to walk him through it, completely blind. Koushi’s never been technologically adept, and it takes him longer to figure out what Tendou's talking about. He's struggling to stay calm, too. He breathes wetly, and cracks a terrible joke about not being able to wipe tears off his face with the helmet on. He was crying again before he could even finish the statement. But he’s determined; that much Daichi can tell.

Tendou switched off the feed from Kozume’s camera shortly after he...passed. It sits like a gaping black hole on the right side of the screen. Daichi can’t help the slide of his eyes, as he continually glances quickly at the dark screen.

“Koushi, how are you doing?” Daichi asks, another attempt to distract himself from the darkened screen. He can feel the pressure in his words, as much as he tries to hide it, and Koushi certainly feels that pressure as well.

“I’m hurrying,” he says softly, monotonously. “Another cylinder done, Tendou. I’m on the last one.”

“Good. Same thing as with the other three. Activate it, and flip the internal switch when it’s done decompressing.”

Tendou scrolls down another list of numbers, squints at his screen, and taps something. It results in a high-pitched squealing, and then the garbled sound of Keiji’s voice in their heads.

_“...eighty...three...eighty…...four……eighty…...four…...”_

Daichi rips the earpiece out of his ear, but the high pitched whine echoes inside his head, and then it stops completely. He cracks open his eyes just as Tendou shouts.

“Wakatoshi,” he says, half hysterical, “Keiji’s rewriting its program!” There’s a scuffle over the comms, a scurrying of motion that distracts Daichi momentarily from Koushi’s progress on the screen.

“That’s impossible,” Ushijima says.

“I know,” Tendou replies. He stares at the tablet with huge eyes, “but it’s happening somehow. _Fuck_ , maybe all those lapses in the perimeter alarms, or- or- someone’s messed with the program. But, I don’t know how it got past me, I don’t _know-”_

“Can you fix this?” Ushijima interjects. Daichi watches Tendou as he tries to even comprehend what’s happening in front of him, a seed of doubt lodged firmly in his own capabilities.

“I don’t know,” he settles on.

“Satori-”

“I don’t _know!_ It’ll take time and we don’t have _any_.”

“Listen-”

“People are _dead_ , and I don’t know what to do! Keiji, just fucking _stop!”_

Tendou throws something metallic against one of the towers. It clangs and groans with the strike, like a beast grumbling at an annoyance.

“Satori,” Ushijima says sharply, “you are going to have a panic attack if you don’t get yourself under control.”

Daichi hears the sound of a breathy laugh, the same one from earlier. He looks around, but there’s no one else in the room with them; it’s just Tendou wheezing by the tower, and himself. There _shouldn’t_ be anyone else in here, but he has the unnerving feeling that something’s watching them.

Another sound, a soft sigh, the slightest hint of a chuckle.

 _“Tendou-san,”_ Daichi hears, just a hint of a whisper, _“give up. You’d be a great help to me if you just stop.”_

Something flashes from the tower; whether it’s something on the tablet or a component of the machinery itself, he can’t be sure, but it’s bright enough to be blinding, and Daichi shields his eyes with his arm and looks away. When he can open his eyes, Tendou’s sprawled out on the floor, his limbs moving in spasms.

“Hey- hey!” Daichi says, “Tendou, this isn’t a time to be fooling around. There’s work to do. Hey!”

He shakes Tendou, but he doesn’t respond, doesn’t so much as shrug him off. Daichi pulls him onto his back, and shouts when Tendou rolls around. His eyes are gone, black, smoking, hollow sockets the only things left. Daichi backs away, reaching out wildly with one hand, the other pressed over his heart. A wheezy laugh shudders through his brain as his head feels like it’s being split in two.

He blinks.

Tendou is hunched over, one hand gripping the edge of the tower, the other clutching the front of his jumpsuit, same position Daichi’s in. Tendou heaves in ragged, gasping breaths. It’s a strange, vulnerable juxtaposition to his earlier calm. Daichi straightens up, his heart thundering wildly in his chest, his and Koushi’s wedding bands driving into his skin. He steps forward, rests his hand on the back on Tendou’s jumpsuit, a paltry attempt at comfort, or grounding himself, he couldn’t say.

“Yes,” Tendou wheezes, “he’s here. ‘m fine. Yeah, ‘m trying.”

The earpiece. He dropped it, he must’ve dropped it. Daichi looks around wildly- there. On the floor a few feet away.

“I don’t want it to happen again,” he hears Tendou say behind him, as he shoves the earpiece back in. No more screeching, thankfully, and he can hear Koushi clearly.

“-won’t happen again,” Koushi says gently over the comm. “I’m almost done, I just finished the last one-”

Koushi grunts when the ship suddenly shudders. The toolbox beside him clatters, then begins to float upwards as the artificial gravity is suspended.

“Shit,” Koushi shouts, _“shit!”_

“Okay,” Tendou says, gasping for breath, “okay. That’s good, it means you’ve made the seal. There’s- shit- uh...there are some buttons, should be, in the center of the console, and a yellow switch, that’s supposed to depressurize the cabin in...preparation for detachment.”

Koushi braces himself against the floor, struggling to keep himself from floating away. He must reach the switch, because Daichi can see clouds of vapor begin to vent into the room. He feels hopeful, suddenly, purely hopeful that this will work, that Koushi will be safe in his arms again soon, but then the ship’s emergency lights begin to glow, and Keiji’s voice is whispering in his head.

 _“Unauthorized detachment in progress,”_ it says in monotone, cold and uncaring. _“Beginning emergency override procedures.”_

“Keiji, cancel order. Clearance code 3045. Keiji, respond,” Ushijima says over the comm, calm and commanding.

There’s nothing but silence. The bridge pod continues to vent vapor, the tools continue to float in limbo for another moment, and then suddenly, they drop. Koushi grunts when he lands on the floor.

“Koushi?” Daichi asks, “Are you alright?”

He’s suffocating, Daichi realizes very suddenly. The rasp of his breath is soft over the comm, but definitely audible.

“He can’t breathe,” Daichi says, “he can’t breathe-”

“He has to pressurize the room before he can take off his helmet.”

“He can’t _breathe-”_

“Suga, get up,” Tendou says, “you have to pressurize the room.”

The comms go dead.

“Koushi!” Daichi shouts, on the verge of hysteria. The image on the tiny screen bends, sprinkled with static, and then blacks out. “Koushi!”

A glimmer on the screen, a burst of static over the comms. The sound of Koushi’s rasping breaths bursts back into Daichi’s ear as the screen settles back into momentary clarity.

“Tendou,” he groans out, “how do I pressurize the cabin?”

“A button, there’s a...red button. It’ll prompt you for the correct formula after you push it.”

“Okay. Okay, I pushed it.”

“What does the screen say?”

“It doesn’t...say anything.”  
  
“It has to, there _has_ to be something.”

“It’s blank, there’s nothing, Tendou.”

“Press it again!”

“It’s bla-”

The screen goes dark for an instant.

“-something. Tendou, what’s the formula?”  
  
“God, _fuck_ -”

“The _formula-”_

“Point zero seven three five, multiplied by...two hundred.”

“Point...zero....seven...”

“Three five, multiplied by two hundred. It will prompt you to proceed, and then you’ll have to...manually release the pressure.”

Koushi groans softly. His head dips down, helmet bumping gently to the floor where he’s sprawled out. The comms go silent again, and Daichi is terrified Koushi’s dead. But he heaves another breath, and drags himself forward.

He’s staring at the panel, doing something that they can’t see on their screen, but he’s talking, slowly in between ragged breaths.

“Okay, I can release it now.”

“Do it,” Tendou says in a whisper.

 _“Unauthorized detachment in process,”_ Keiji says, _“beginning-”_

“Keiji, cancel order.”

_“-emergency-”_

“Cancel it. Clearance code 3045. Ushijima, Wakatoshi.”

_“-procedure.”_

“I got it, I got it!” Koushi rasps over the comms. “I can-”

For an instant, Daichi swears he sees another figure flicker into place over Koushi’s image on the screen. That same dark-haired person he keeps imagining, staring at him with piercing green eyes. He blinks, and the figure disappears, leaving Koushi’s struggling form behind.

“It’s not working,” Koushi whispers. Daichi feels his heart plummet.

“What do you mean- Tendou, what does that mean?” Daichi says.

“I don’t- the release. The release. The override- _fuck._ ”

Tendou rips something out of the tower in front of him, and Daichi _swears_ he can hear a scream inside his head, the faintest, but unmistakeable sound that chills him straight to the marrow of his bones, but it’s drowned out by a sharp crackle of static.

“Koushi?” he calls out, “Koushi!”

_“Daichi.”_

It’s a whisper, laced with static, probing the recesses of his mind, then retreating. Daichi stares at Koushi’s fading form on the window of a screen in front of him, his heart thundering in his chest.

“Daichi.”

His whole body seizes in terror. The finality of Koushi’s tone, the realization that Koushi is slipping away-

“Koushi, no, baby, don’t do this to me-” Daichi grasps at his chest, feeling for their rings strung on a chain.

“Suga, the release,” Tendou shouts.

“Daichi? Remember the sunset?”

“The release, Suga, pull the release! Pull it again! I can’t, god no, I can’t-”

“Sugawara, pull the release.”

“Koushi, stay with me-”

“I’m almost there, Daichi, I can feel it. The heat of it. Daichi, it’s beautiful.”

“Sugawara, the release-!”

“Koushi!”

Everything goes dead, the comms silenced, the screen to black. A pressure in Daichi’s head, a throbbing pulse behind his ear, abruptly dies. He feels the presence wither, sputtering out like a flame, and suddenly, his mind is awake, acutely clear.

“Koushi?” Daichi calls. His voice is frail and raw, thick with emotion. The sound of it echoes back to him, ringing in his empty head along with the pounding of his heart. He blinks, his hand twisted against the front of his shirt, and sees nothing but darkness, pure and endless.


End file.
